Landis+Gyr Group AG has partnered with Pacific Equity Partners to form a joint venture that will acquire smart meter management service Acumen from Australian energy retailer Origin Energy Ltd.
The acquisition will be completed in the coming months, Landis+Gyr said in a May 23 news release. The joint venture will be known as intelliHUB Holdings Pty. Ltd. and plans to provide a "significant proportion" of an estimated 8 million smart meters to be deployed across New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. The new enterprise will service 170,000 meters already deployed across Origin Energy service areas and will secure a material, long-term contract with the utility for the rollout of additional meters.
Parallel to the acquisition, intelliHUB has entered into a five-year meter supply contract with Landis+Gyr, with expected volumes of approximately 800,000 smart meters to be deployed to multiple utility customers across Australia and New Zealand.
The new venture has already raised more than A$500 million to finance the rollout of smart meters, which comes from a combination of Pacific Equity Partners' new A$1 billion secure assets fund and a banking consortium of eight Australian and global financial institutions.
Landis+Gyr will be contributing both cash and its intelliHUB business with combined equity value of up to A$75 million.
